Jurassic World: The Serum (Raptor TF)
by Razordraac
Summary: InGen once again have caused an atrocity. This time however, everything will change.
1. Prologue

The first thing that hit me was the blinding light. Was I in heaven? In an instant, a high pitched beeping pierced my ears like a bullet. No longer had I barely processed these sensations before I saw a blurry face, felt the prick of a needle, followed by blackness once again.

No, I was in hell.

The second time I opened my eyes, my body felt like it was on fire. I was immediately screaming my lungs out, writhing furiously in what was restraining me.

"Subject Alpha, eleven-fourty-four, serum appears to be working as intended..."

I could barely process speech due to the pain coursing through me as a white, coated figure came up to my face and looked me over. I'd never seen this person in my life, yet all of a sudden I had this uncontrollable urge to claw his eyes out.

"Dermis transformation is almost complete, keratin growth looking positive."

I didn't know what any of that meant. I didn't care. All I felt right now was rage.

"Heart rate... rising? That shouldn't be..."

I could feel adrenaline rushing through my body as I began to pull hard against the restraints.

"Tranq him... tranq him!", the main exclaimed, fear ringing in his voice. Wonderful, satisfying fear.

With a snap I was free, my hand catching his chest and staining it red. A whizzing sound passed my ear as I lunged forward... right onto something sharp. A sudden rush of ice entering me, I froze and blacked out once again.

This time, the first thing that hit me was the smell of blood. I sniffed frantically a couple times, the strong stench overwhelming me. Opening my eyes slowly, the scene around me was no less unpleasant. Streaks of blood practically painted the glass panes of the room, a man in an armoured vest - or what was left of it - slumped on the floor beneath it. I lifted my hand to the torn and equally blood-stained bed beside me, and found that lifting myself with it was much more awkward that it should have been. I fell back and almost hit myself with my... what? In front of me, slithering across the floor from side to side, was only what I could describe as a tail. Initially common sense led me to think that it belonged to something else here with me, yet the longer I stared at it, the more it felt part of me. I could feel each muscle contracting and relaxing within it, every tile it brushed against on the floor, the cool air making it shiver ever so slightly. My hand instinctively moved forward to touch it... and instead poked into it, making my 'tail' whip away from the prick of pain it caused. I stretched whatever my hand now was out, claws on it glistening in clinical white light.

I was quite sure I was hallucinating at this point, so I tried to scramble to my feet. This was surprisingly easy, as I found my feet oddly anchored to the ground. Almost simultaneously, I caught sight of... something in the glass. I jerked backward initially, as the creature standing there was rather frightening. It looked like some sort of dinosaur... like a... raptor? Oh...

Suddenly, everything hit me at once. I craned my scaled head back and forth, stumbling around and growling fearfully. What had those bastards done to me? Head abuzz with panic, I stumbled over the cracked monitor on the glass desk in front of me. The characters on it were barely distinguishable.

 _WAR...G: DOSE EXCE...D_

I didn't really try and understand this, as an intense anger began to bubble up within me again. A loud growl left my serrated mouth as I turned to the door and practically smashed through it, breaking into a sprint down the hallway.

I felt like running, and more worryingly..

...I felt like killing.


	2. I - Tooth and Claw

Alarms blared as I continued to sprint down the hall. My claws clicked on each footstep, air hissing through my sharp teeth as I rounded another corner. In a split-second, my senses locked onto yet another target running from me. With my powerful legs I pounced and landed squarely on him, pinning him to the floor, claws puncturing his skin. The look of horror on his face was short lived as I clamped my teeth onto it and twisted, breaking his neck.

The pure rage which was driving me at this point was more or less controlling me. It was as if I were on a murderous autopilot; I could do no more than sit in the backseat and be forced to watch. It wasn't disgusting me however, which I could only attibute to the strength of the anger I was feeling inhbiting any other emotions.

The facility I was in seemed endless as I ran and lept down another corridor with no real direction, just a panicked urge to escape. It wouldn't be for long though, as I heard a whizzing sound, a sharp pain in my thigh and then my face on the floor. Non-deterred, I struggled tirelessly to get back onto my feet, yet the harder I tried, the more futile my efforts became. The last thing I remember hearing before I blacked out once again was a calm voice.

"Sorry about this, buddy..."

-==-

Funnily enough, that was one of the best naps I'd had. It seemed so at least, as when I finally opened my eyes all anger had mysteriously vanished. Still drowsy, I steadily looked around. I was restrained once more. Great, I wonder what they're planning this time...

Before I could ponder any longer, the voice I heard before rang out again, averting my gaze to the still blurry figure a few feet in front of me.

"Rise and shine. You've been out for six hours... out like a light."

Vision coming back to me, I began to make out who was speaking. Tapping his fingers on a silver dart gun, a dark-haired man stood nonchalantly, smiling cockily as if I was his friend or something. He was dressed like some sort of park ranger and covered in dirt; obviously not one of the scientists who were experimenting on me earlier. The room we were was dark and musty, a small trickle of water dripping from a hole in the corner and a lamp flickering intermittently on the ceiling. Wherever we were, it wasn't the facility; and I was glad of that in the very least.

Human habits evidently still present, I spoke. Well, I tried to at least. All that came out was a sort of hissy chirp. The man chuckled.

"I'm afraid that won't work, buddy. Raptor voicebox ain't built for the alphabet."

Bemused, he stepped up to me and began undoing the restraints that were binding me to the bed I was in. Once I was free, I basically fell to the floor and stumbled around for a moment. I clearly wasn't one-hundred percent awake yet. Looking away, the man called out.

"Blue? Come here, girl."

To my surprise, another raptor, which I had assumed was 'Blue' and was female, emerged carefully from the shadows, walking slowly towards me and cocking her head in curiosity. As it walked into the dim light, I could see her more clearly. She was mostly grey in colour, with a long blue patch running from her eyes to the tip of her tail. A number of scars decorated her head and torso, and she had a slight limp in her left leg. Even from such a short anaylsis, I could she had been through some hell at some point. Guess that made two of us.

Despite being about as equal to her as I could be in the circumstances, I froze a little in fear as she came close to me and began sniffing my muzzle curiously. Almost instinctively, I found myself doing the same, inhaling the very strong and unique scent she seemed to eminate.

"This is Blue. She's a lot like you... or perhaps the other way around."

Again the man laughed for a second, before his grin vanished.

"Sorry. I don't mean that in any disrespect. I can only imagine what you've been through today."

Looking about the room, he seemed to think for a second before putting a hand to his chest and smiling once more.

"I'm Owen, by the way. Used to run a lot of things on this island, until everything went to hell... twice. The most important thing is that we're here to help you. No more needles and labcoats; I can promise you that much."

I nodded nervously; one of the few forms of human communication I could still muster as I was now. Owen walked over to a computer and began typing as Blue backed up slightly and let out a friendly chirp. I say friendly, as I somehow was now able to understand the normally inelligible noises she was making.

"I like you. You smell nice."

Something along those lines at least. Cocking my head slightly to the side, I chirped back in a positive tone to indicate my appreciation.

"Over here Blue." Owen said from across the room, Blue spinning her head around in alert.

"Let's show our friend here the gear."

She walked over to him, where Owen was holding some sort of headset. Patting her gently on the muzzle, which made her chirp affectionately, he slowly lowered the headset onto her head until the mouthpiece was resting just below her eye. He then moved his hand to what looked like a projector on the table and switched it on, the wall ahead of it illuminating in a rectangle of deep blue.

Owen gestured at Blue as she looked at him expectantly.

"This is what we call a cerebral interpreter. It's something I managed to grab from InGen when everything went down a few years back. Put simply, it allows intelligent animals, such as Blue here, to talk."

I cocked my head again, this time in a certain degree of surprise. He stepped back for a moment and pointed at Blue as she continued to stare at him.

"Blue, report."

Promptly she chirped, seemingly in acknowledgement before looking forward in an expression of concentration. Within a couple of seconds, white text began to appear word by word on the wall.

 _BLUE IS READY_

Owen then looked at me and spoke again.

"As you may have noticed, Blue did not open her mouth just then. The clue's in the name - _cerebral_ interpreter. It interprets thoughts. What you can see here is what she _thought_ translated into plain English so us humans can understand it."

He pulled a scrap of meat from his jacket pocket and held it above her. Snapping her jaws, Blue practically tore the meat from his hand and swallowed it quickly.

"Good girl!" Owen said, smiling at her and patting her on the back.

Walking back over to the table, he switched the projector off and pulled out some sort of speaker from his bag, placing it carefully on the table directed towards me. I moved closer in curiosity, glancing at Blue as she looked back. There was something particularly eye-catching about her.

"Now, text on a screen is all well and good... until you need to communicate quickly. And nothing beats actual speech for that. See, when we first got these things they were still in prototype. What you just saw was the limits of their capability; slow and text only. With the help of some friends... well, let's just say we gave them a bit of an upgrade."

Owen shouted out to Blue once again.

"Blue, phrase!"

Blue appeared to focus again, and to my amazement, the speaker almost instantaneously blurted out in a female synthesised voice.

"Brown prey jump over Blue. Blue eat brown prey. Blue like eating because brown prey tastes nice."

Owen laughed and patted Blue on her back again, causing her to trill happily again.

"It's a work in progress... not the tech that is, more her ability to form this stuff in her head. She is a raptor after all."

Picking up another headset which was lying on the table, he walked over to me and slowly placed it on my head, switching it on and stepping back again.

"Now, while Blue is limited by her - forgive me girl - limited intelligence, your human mind should still be intact. I'd probably be a pool of blood on the floor if not by now, but there's only one way to find out. You should be able to speak a bit more.. _eloquently_ than her if you concentrate hard enough. Go on, try and speak your mind."

Concentrating in the same way I had noticed Blue doing it, I thought hard about a sentence in my head and surely enough, it crackled out from the speaker.

"I could really do with the bathroom right now, if such a thing applies to me anymore."

Owen grinned like an idiot like this, obviously bemused by my humour. I tried to smile as hard as I could with my reptillian mouth but found it easier to simply do a happy chirp instead. Blue, while initially clueless as to why Owen was laughing, understood my chirp and purred. She was an adorable thing really, and boy did she look good. I spent a good few seconds admiring her markings again before I snapped out of it and shook my head. These foreign instincts were powerful and I really needed to be careful.

"Now that we can talk, how about we get to figuring out how this happened to you?"

I nodded and looked down at my scaly arm, contemplating as I clenched my claws. Whoever did this was certainly going to pay.


	3. II - Care Forbidden

You could probably have heard a pin drop in those few initial moments. Three lab-coated men stood, half in horror and half in awe, at the scene of devastation in front of them.

"Is this where he broke out?" one of them asked, looking around at the several disembowled corpses littering the floor. The man to the left of him, an Asian individual with a worn out expression, sighed and spoke under his breath.

"Seems so... goddammit. Let's see if we can find anything."

With that, the three of them split up and began pacing the room, examining everything thoroughly. The Asian man, looking around the bloodied desk noticed the smashed monitor sitting there, where the same garbled text from before flickered over and over. After a few seconds, his eyes opened wide as his expression changed to that of disbelief.

"Guys? You might wanna see this..." he remarked shakily, pulling a pair of glasses out from his coat pocket and donning them quickly.

The others came over to either side of him and stared at the screen blankly, not initially noting any significance.

"What does it mean?"

Quivering in a mix of fear and apprehension, the man slowly sat down in the chair and rested his head on his hand anxiously.

"It means we're in pretty deep shit."

-==-

"You know, I don't think I ever got your name." Owen mused, the interior large armoured truck rattling noisily as it thundered down the dirt track.

I looked up from my seat and at Blue, who was looking at me intently from the other side. This whole trip we had been 'talking' to each other through the standard affair of chirps and clicks we had attempted yesterday. Despite her limited set of vocabulary which was mostly limited to the words 'food', 'kill' and 'Alpha', there was actually a lot more to her than met the eye. Whenever I felt sad about the situation at hand, she went quiet and looked at me empathetically with those big, slitted eyes. When I was happy she was happy too. I was on a bit of an emotional rollercoaster and she was along for the ride. She wanted to be. Nobody had really been there for me like that before, and-

"Still in there?" he repeated, snapping me out of my trance.

I once again 'spoke' through the interpreter I had been wearing all morning.

"Sorry. Was just getting to know Blue some more. She keeps telling me how you're her alpha and how you're the best in quite literally every way."

Owen chuckled quite a bit at this as he dragged the steering wheel around slowly.

"Well, I did raise her from when she was just a chick. I'm probably as close a thing to an alpha she'll ever have... after she lost the rest of her pack that is."

I had no idea that had happened to her.

"I'm really sorry to hear that...", I said morosely. I looked back at Blue, noticing her many war-torn scars again and chirped sadly to show my sympathy. Of course she did not understand the context of my gesture so instead replied with a cute noise and nuzzled me playfully. I knew she wouldn't really understand, I just really wanted her to be happy and not have to go through such loss again. It was remarkable that I was developing such a strong bond with her yet we'd barely known each other for a day.

"The name's Marcus, by the way...", I said, tapping my toe claw on the ground habitually.

Something about my name felt wrong as soon as I said it. I had always identified with that name before, yet at that moment it felt as if I was talking about someone else. It was an extremely odd sensation, and really just added to the internal conflict brewing inside me.

"Marcus, eh? Any family?", Owen queried.

I shook my head and grunted.

"Parents? Kids?"

I sighed deeply and looked at the floor, a feeling of regret sweeping over me.

"No... not since-"

I was suddenly cut off as we were thrown forward and the truck skidded to a halt. Blue, who was previously bored and had been pacing about, ended up head first into Owen's seat back. Without second thought I quickly stumbled over and helped her up by wedging my muzzle underneath her.

"Marcus, tell Blue to be quiet! We got trouble." Owen quickly instructed, a small degree of panic permeating his voice.

As quietly as I could, I made the noise for 'quiet' at her and she quickly crouched, looking about for signs of danger. I stood a little higher over her protectively as footsteps approached outside. As Owen rolled down the window I tried to hold my breath to create less noise.

"Do you know where you are?", a black man wearing body armour asked with a stern voice, an assault rifle slung readily in his arms.

Sensing human presence, Blue frowned and began to growl quietly. I quietly snapped my jaws at her and an attempt to calm her down to which she responded with a half-annoyed, half-submissive expression, closing her mouth momentarily and looking up at me.

Owen looked down calmly at the map on his lap, putting on a confused expression.

"Ah... I must have taken a wrong turn. I'm from maintenance you see; I'm looking for the big radio mast... here... I think?", he responded, pointing down at an entirely random spot on the map.

The man frowned and lowered his gun to point somewhere else on the map as Owen nodded as innocently as he could.

"Oh, right... I see!" he joked, putting on a smile. He looked at the map and out the window a few times and pointed afar.

"Should be somewhere over that direction, right?"

The man turned to see where he was pointing and stepped back slightly, his attention distracted.

"More or less, just take a u-turn and then the first-"

Acting quickly, Owen grabbed the man's head and whacked it as hard as he could off the side of the truck, sending him swiftly to the ground.

"We gotta be quick now. Not gonna be long until they spot us...", he exclaimed, unlocking the doors and rapidly grabbing the man's rifle off the floor. Blue and I hopped out as I sniffed the air for the scent of others. Upon seeing the incapitated man, Blue hissed aggressively, prompting Owen to frown at her.

"No, girl... you'll get your fill later on. Come on.", he ordered, gesturing her towards him. I turned around and scampered up to my pack, prepared for anything.

-==-

Suddenly, a loud alarm pierced out from what seemed like every direction at once. As the group swivelled up and around in alert at all corners of the room, the Asian man turned to one side, hearing distant gunshots echoing through the corridors. Quickly yanking a flash drive from the computer on the desk, he turned around and moved quickly towards the door.

"We need to go. Right now."

Soon the scientists were running down the nearest corridor, the man leading them. As they approached a T-junction, he looked both ways frantically and pointed to the right.

"This way! Stick together, we really don't want to be-"

Suddenly, he froze in his tracks, a look of horror quickly overtaking his face as a grey raptor rounded the next corner in front of them, screeching and hissing loudly as it saw them and prowled closer steadily, its blue stripe catching the dim light. He could not help but notice its claws in an raised position, ready to gut him and everyone else in a moment's notice. It didn't take him long to recognise her though.

"...Blue?" he said under his breath, not believing what he was seeing.

Another screech from behind them quickly spun them around as another raptor was suddenly also closing on them, this time dark blue with a striking white line down its side. I growled loudly as my eyesight locked onto them, rage building up within me once again. Underneath the shadow of a flickering light behind me, Owen followed closely, glistening assault rifle leveled right at them.

"As you might already be aware, running isn't really an option for you now. So how about you show us some hands!", he shouted threateningly, prompting an encore of hissing from Blue and I as we continued to stalk them.

Without hesitation, the group of scientists raised their hands above their heads compliantly. The Asian man looked around at Owen again, prompting both to frown voraciously at each other.

"Henry Wu... should've known you'd be part of all this.", Owen spat.

I looked at Owen in shock for a moment.

"You know him...?"


	4. III - Moral Compass

The first thing I could sense this time was that all too familiar scent. Confirming my suspicions, a loud, familiar chirp hit my ears as I drearily awoke from my slumber. As the image ahead of me steadily became clearer, I instantly noticed Blue staring at me longingly with those jewel-like amber eyes. Purring in reply, I nuzzled her softly. Couldn't really complain about waking up to that. Rising to my feet off the bed I was lying on, I stretched out my tail. I watched intently as she stepped towards the door, panning her head towards it and then to me repeatedly in quick succession, clicking her big toe claws on the floor as she did so.

"Okay Blue, I get it." I communicated to her through a series of clicks and chirps. I'd had some time to practice 'raptor-ish' with her now and was getting pretty good with it. I suppose I was built for it, after all.

I looked about my surroundings just to make sure I wasn't locked up in some damn lab again; I was still scarred somewhat from that entire experience and the fear of going through it again still haunted me. I breathed a sigh of relief as I quickly realised was back in the run down building from earlier. It certainly wasn't a five-star hotel, but it was at least free of scientists.

Down the corridor, Owen's voice rang out.

"Blue? I need you here now. Bring our friend.", he said, Blue chirping loudly in response and scampering off down the hall. Without hesitation, I followed her in close pursuit. It felt so good to run with her. I was part of the pack and she felt like family.

In a matter of seconds we were in the main room. Upon opening the door I was surprised to see the scientists from before in one corner, their hands bound behind their backs. Upon seeing them Blue was once again snarling angrily at them, posed defensively. Owen had his gun levelled in their direction as he averted his gaze to me, a serious look on his face. This suddenly revealed a big red gash on his right cheek, closely missing his eye and his sleeve torn and tattered. Something had seriously gone down.

"What do you remember from last night, Marcus? It's important.", he said sternly, the scientists looking at me in a vein of confusion.

"Well... I remember being in the facility. We cornered these guys and then... well after that I just can't recall anything." I spoke, realising with relief that I still had my interpreter on and Owen could therefore hear me through the headset he was wearing. To the others of course, I hadn't made a sound.

"Interesting.", he replied sarcastically.

"Strange how that works, especially after I noticed Dr. Wu here fiddling with this thing behind his back at the time."

Shooting a glare at the Asian-looking scientist, who I had by this point assumed to be Dr. Wu, Owen produced a small handheld remote with a round blue button glowing at its centre and held it in clear sight of both me and the scientists. He then looked back at him and stepped closed, his finger moving to rest on the trigger of his rifle.

"Now, the choice is pretty damn simple. You're gonna tell me what this does or I'm gonna have to mess up the wall behind you with your brains. I really don't care - you've screwed up enough lives already." he spat angrily, barrel aimed squarely on the scientist's forehead. I'd not seen him this pissed yet.

Dr. Wu glanced at Blue, who was hissing and baring her teeth at him, before looking back and sighing.

"Alright... fine. Just as long as you stop pointing that thing at my cranium...", he replied reluctantly.

Owen nodded and lowered his rifle, maintaining a serious expression. Looking over at me, he sighed.

"I hate to ask this of you buddy, but could you unbind him for us?"

I nodded at him and wandered over to Mr. Wu, glaring at him continuously as I did. I was finally going to get some answers, and this fuck was hopefully gonna spill them. Walking around the back of him, I lifted my index claw and quickly slit the rope binding his hands together. Rubbing them sorely on his labcoat, he sighed deeply again and looked at me again as I walked back over to my position beside Blue.

"Watch him Blue... make sure he doesn't try anything stupid." Owen ordered, Blue hissing as she moved closer to him and stared at him piercingly. With a degree of regret marring his voice, he began to explain.

"After our little Indoraptor project went awry - no thanks to you - I and a few others managed to flee to somewhere hidden away. I actually managed to recover the majority of my research. And one thing I've learnt through my career in genetics is that no matter what happens, there's always a buyer."

The doctor shook his head and smiled to himself humorously.

"What's so funny?", Owen retorted, frowning at him again. Dr. Wu chuckled to himself.

"Sorry," he mumbled, composing himself, "it just the next part always sounds to me like something from a goddamn comic book."

His face became serious again as he looked at Owen in the eye.

"Soldiers. Not just any. 'Saurians'... I believe. That's the term we used."

Wu put his hands together in front of him, continuing with his explanation.

"See, the one thing we've learnt consistently through all of the disasters we've had to endure over the years is that these animals are _absolutely_ lethal. They outmatch us in more or less every single way... in strength, stamina, speed, reflexes... and in the case of the velociraptor they can almost damn well match us in smarts."

"Go on...", said Owen impatiently.

"That's why we tried to weaponise them, like we did with the Indoraptor... sell them off to someone who needed a method to kill with superb efficiency. Which is great and all until the 'weapon' turns on you and fucks everything up. After the last incident it finally occurred to me why this kept happening; instinct. Instinct is the one thing we could not, and cannot, remove from the animals... no matter what, because they all ultimately survive on it. That is what caused them to turn against us."

Dr. Wu grinned, placing a hand on his chest.

"So this posed us a question: what's the only species on this planet that can override their instinct purely by will? Humans! Us! We were the key to solving the liability of instinct."

Owen looked at him confused as I also cocked my head, still not fully getting his point.

"I did my research and eventually, we came up with the Saurians. Velociraptor DNA fused with human tissue... it made our initial test subjects stronger, faster... their claws meant even unarmed they could easily take down an entire enemy rifle squad without a scratch. Their humanoid posture meant they could still operate our vehicles and fire our weapons, they could run for miles without breaking a sweat and keep up with a speeding tank. And, most importantly, they were always under control because we kept the one thing that separated them from mere animals; the human brain. They would follow orders willingly, motivated by a rousing speech and a paycheck - just like any other soldier. They were _perfect_ in theory..."

"And was Marcus one of your guinea pigs?", snapped Owen, pointing directly at me, "Looks one-hundred percent raptor to me. What about all these murderous rampages he's having, like last night where I almost lost my goddamn face?"

I stared at Owen in shock.

"Wait... what?!", I said, my sudden panic likely not translating well on the emotionless synthetic voice through his headset. My rapidly altered body language was noticed by Blue, however, who looked at me quickly with worry clearly visible in her eyes.

Dr. Wu frowned and was silent for a moment, sighing as if he was about to say something he really didn't want to.

"One thing that always holds true with cutting-edge science is that it will blow up in your face a hell of a lot. Only about thirty percent of the original selection of candidates made it through surgery. Military men and women with spouses... and families. The more we lost, the harder and harder it became to cover it up because their families and loved ones wanted justice. So... we changed our scope of search to combat this exact problem; we looked for people with no one. Nobody to care equals nobody to spill our atrocities to the world."

I was completely motionless as I listened intently to every word.

"We originally trialled three candidates. Three people we found out on the streets. We made sure they had no family or attachments... that they had nothing to live for... and then we had our agents abduct them. You were one of those candidates, Marcus."

I felt as if I had just been hit by a train. After every struggle I had endured in life... how could they have done this to me? I began to growl with intense growing anger again as Dr. Wu took a look at me again and shook his head disappointedly.

"Unfortunately, the other two didn't make it." Dr. Wu said somberly, sighing deeply.

"But you were going to be our Magnum Opus - the sole survivor. The epitome of years of hard work and innovation. Then you had to break free..."

His face suddenly turned red and scrunched up with anger. His voice quickly became louder and louder as tears began to cloud his eyes.

"You had to just _fuck_ it all up, didn't you?! Accidentally inject yourself with _three times_ the amount of serum that was meant for you and become the one fucking thing we had been fighting so hard to leave in the past!"

Sensing the rising anger and threat in his voice, Blue screeched loudly and pounced.

"No!" shouted Owen, instinctively raising his rifle at her. I was too caught up in my own overflowing emotions to react quickly enough and by the time I did, it was just too late.

As I lept forward to in a vain attempt push her away, a spray of red splashed across my face, making me miss my landing and stumble over.

"Blue! Stop!" I screeched out to her helplessly as I jumped back to my feet only to observe the gory chaos unfolding in front of me. My claws were a mere inch from her body when the familiar sound of a tranq dart flew past my ears and into her side. Shocked by the prick of pain, she tripped, fell and was quiet. I looked over at her, breathing heavily and trembling from the rapid sequence of events. As Owen grabbed a few bandages off the table and attempted furiously to tend to the claw-punctured Dr. Wu, I sat there with Blue's limp head in my arms, air slowly hissing in and out her jaws. Deathly silence filled my hearing as I panted, exhausted.

And as I sat there, blood dripping off my face and Blue sleeping beneath me, thinking about everything that had been revealed... in my mind I felt everything coming to a point.

My true birth in fire.


	5. IV - Identity Crisis

I was sitting on the floor, still and pensive in my quarters as Blue snored softly on my bed beside me. The sky outside was darkening, thunder bellowing in the distance as the light in the room gradually grew dimmer. I lifted up one of my scaly arms, running a claw down it as I stared at it quietly. How could I avoid the truth? This was me...

Blue shuffled and growled softly for a moment before falling silent once again in her sleep. She was dreaming. In a lot of ways, she was quite human. I immediately scowled at that thought. What good had humanity done her? What good had humanity done _me_? As my past was steadily returning to me, it only increased my anger at the race I had called my own. Everything terrible that had happened to Blue, me and every other animal on this island was their fault. So much life lost... even many of their own species they would happily toss in the fire under the excuse of 'collateral damage'.

The longer I thought about it, the less I wanted to be identified among them. What was stopping me when I was raptor in everything but mind? My entire life had been a struggle to be someone I was not, and despite everything, right now I felt more like myself than I had ever felt. For the first time I had someone I could trust with my life beside me and for the first time, I felt-

A loud knock on the door rudely snapped me from my thoughts. I turned around, growling quiety at the intruder as they slowly opened the door. It was Owen.

"What do you want?" I spoke through my interpreter, glaring at him.

He recoiled slightly, not anticipating such an aggressive response and frowned.

"I just came to check up on you. You've been gone for hours." he said, concern marring his tone. I growled again, quietly tapping my toe claw on the ground in frustration.

"I'm here because I want to be alone." I retorted, looking at the floor solemnly. Owen sighed and rested his arm on the door frame.

"Alright, I'll leave you be then. Henry is stable by the way. Looks like he's gonna make it."

I snapped my jaws at this and turned around to stare him in the eye.

"I wish the same could be said for the rest of the test subjects. For all the other animals we have murdered because they decided they didn't want to play by _our_ rules anymore." I said frustratingly. Owen looked bewildered for a moment.

"Us? InGen are the ones who did this-"

I interrupted, snarling loudly at him.

"Always shifting the blame. That's all humans ever do, pin their errors on someone and pretend everything else is okay."

I stepped to my feet, squaring up to Owen and bearing my teeth in anger.

"Let me ask you something, Owen. Do you really think all this will be sorted if InGen disappear? Of course not... someone else will step up to do the same shit and our entire goal will be pointless."

Owen stammered as he backed up against a wall to avoid me.

"But-"

I wasn't stopping now.

"The issue is with our goddamn race. I knew that before any of this happened and it's only been proven to me all over again." I snarled.

Owen lifted his hands up in an attempt to calm me as he breathed quickly in panic.

"Marcus, I understand you're under a heck of a lot of stress right now but-"

I balled my hand into a fist and firmly shoved it into his chest, cutting him off his sentence once again.

"Don't call me that. I don't want to be reminded of my past."

With this I ripped off my headset and threw it to the floor. I snapped my jaws again at Owen and stormed out the door, turning and breaking into a run down the dark corridor. I couldn't deal with this right now. As I neared a door at the end I was suddenly stopped in my tracks as the figure of Blue jumped out in front of me, growling defensively. I took care not to growl back... the last thing I wanted was a standoff with her. I was stern nonetheless.

"Blue, out of my way." I chirped as carefully as I could to her. To my dismay she simply screeched loudly, waving her tail and further blocking my path.

I lowered my head and hissed frustratingly. I didn't want to hurt her.

"I need some time to myself, girl." I said, trying to push my way through her.

"Alpha want you here! Blue want you here..."

I stopped in my tracks at this and looked at her quietly. The look on her face was nothing but pure fear at that moment. She was so scared of losing me... and it was clear I was going to break her heart if I did. I took one of her clawed hands in mine and looked at her longingly, sending her quiet as she looked back.

"I don't expect you to understand." I thought solemnly, knowing her loyalty to Owen was so important to her. She needed a pack, and right now he was all she had left. I couldn't expect anything from her.

I nuzzled Blue gently as she closed her eyes, calmed by my gesture.

"I'm coming back for you." I chirped quietly, looking her in the eyes. Tears welling up, I pulled my claws away and began to scamper off towards the outdoors. I was going to make it right for her, no matter what.

"What do you mean, _he got away_?"

An angry voice crackled through his phone's speaker as Owen closed his eyes and sighed with stress.

"He freaked out. Took everything earlier on pretty bad - humanity isn't exactly on his list of friends right now." Owen replied, taking a seat as he held his head in his hands despairingly.

"And Blue?" the man on the other end queried snappily.

Owen paused for a second and looked across the room. He hadn't seen her this bad before. She was curled up about as tightly as physically possible, her eyes staring forward blankly as she remained motionless.

"She's... stable. She _tried_ to stop him, but honestly? Those two really have something between them. I don't think she could bring herself to restrain him by force." he spoke pensively. He knew immediately his sentiment would be wasted.

"Look... I don't honestly care for any of this pussy shit. Alpha is a priority one asset; he _isn't_ like the others. He can communicate... _spill_ everything! That happens and you... me... _everyone_ is behind bars. We're out of loopholes to jump though, Owen. This is our final option."

Owen knew it just as well as him. He stopped to ponder for a minute on how he would get out of this shit as soon as it was over, before replying sternly.

"What do you want me to do?"

The man's tone switched suddenly as if he was finally hearing what he wanted.

"I need you to find him. Bring him back... dead _or_ alive. You're free to use any means possible." he ordered stoicly.

Owen froze for a moment, frowning.

" _Dead_? What the hell good is he to you _dead_? _"_ he retorted, veiling his shock instead in a tone of confusion.

"That's not your call, Owen. Just get it done. Out."

A beep sounded as the call disconnected and Owen lowered the phone from his head, breathing heavily. It wasn't over yet.


	6. V - Exodus

I grimaced as wet mud splashed onto my muzzle once again. My mind was distracted for a moment while my legs ached and my feet stung from soreness. How far was I going to go?

Losing momentum, I stopped to catch my breath. It must have been a couple hours since I got out of there. The thunderstorm had finally broken, and the rainforest' undergrowth was a muddy quagmire. Stopping by a large puddle, I looked at myself in the dim, overcast light. While their brilliance was diminished by grime and dirt, the line of bright white scales down my body glinted into my eyes, contrasting the deep blue which covered the rest of me. I was striking to say the least, and unlike anything I would have ever expected in something prehistoric. Then I remembered. None of it was natural.

I growled resentfully once again, looking around me with large, reptillian eyes. It was getting dark and my stomach was grumbling ferociously. I needed to eat soon. Now I thought about it, I had not in fact eaten in days - since before I became _this -_ even. I knew from science books that predators of my calibre were capable of going weeks without a meal. I didn't know how long I had been unconscious while those bastards were working on me however, and judging by my symptoms I could really do with some nutrition.

But really, I had no idea how to hunt. After all, it was never something human me needed to do. I knew so far that I had attained some raptor instincts when they gave me that serum - I'd certainly felt them a few times since. I was confident hunting instincts were among these, but for now I just needed to use what I always had, my head.

Thinking of what I had learnt from documentaries in the past, I sniffed the air intently, hoping to pick up scents that may lead me to some prey. It was surprising how good my sense of smell now was as I inhaled the environment around me. The refreshing dampness of the air, the fragrant scent of every tree and shrub around me... and _that_. I could not describe the latter as it was unlike anything I had smelt before. All I knew was that it was _extremely_ alluring. Almost hypnotic, as I found myself looking around and trying to judge where it was coming from, almost without me trying. It _must_ be the scent of prey... and it was coming from over there. Sight locking onto a clearing in the forest, I set off again, my pace in full swing.

-==-

Red light flashed into Owen's face as he lifted the detector up high and moved it around, attempting to triangulate where this damn thing was. He knew the tracker would still be operating perfectly, those things were built to survive anything. It must have been this thunderstorm interfering with the signal - after all, the uplink required satellite connection. Despite the erratic readings however, he had managed to zero it in to an area of about three-hundred metres across. Technically, it wasn't too big a space to search, the issue was that it was in the middle of a dense fucking rainforest.

"Sniff him out, Blue." he spoke into his mic. Blue, following reluctantly behind, cocked his head at him and uttered a confused chirp. Owen sighed and pointed forwards through the trees, frowning at her.

"Go on. Scent!" he repeated irritably. She'd been like this ever since they left camp. It had been hard enough getting her to come out with him in the first place, and in her current mood part of him wished he hadn't. He needed her though; finding Marcus would have been practically impossible otherwise in a forest like this.

She seemed to get the message this time, chirping loudly as she sniffed the air and began surveying the area in front of them. Owen began following her carefully, reaching around his back for his rifle and holding it to firing stance. He had only had time to grab one magazine before he set out, he just hoped it would be enough if shit went down.

Suddenly, the undergrowth rustled to the left of him. He quickly leveled his firearm in the direction of the noise, eyeing the view to the front. He began to step closer, aiming down the sights as he clicked off his safety. Nothing yet. Behind him, Blue let out a loud screech. Had she found something? He span around quickly... and right into a flash of white and blue.

-==-

Leaping with strength, my feet landed into Owen's chest and quickly threw him to the floor. His silenced rifle cracked and a bullet whizzed by just inches to the left of my forehead. While he was still stunned, I grabbed it off him with haste and tossed it to the side, pinning him down with one of my feet, toe claw raised high threateningly. I growled viciously at him, baring my teeth.

" _Live_ ammunition? What happened to non-lethal, huh!?" I screeched at him, staring at him with pure rage.

"Only because I knew this would happen!" Owen shouted, clutching his throat as I brought my talon closer to gouging it. I stopped for a second and reached for my head, remembering that I had discarded my interpreter back at the camp. He tapped his own headset a couple times as if to bring attention to it and attempted to grin at me.

"I don't need you to be wearing one if we're close enough. My mic picks you up." he explained, a good deal of panic still in his eyes. I remained confused for a second before frowning at him again and growling loudly, applying more pressure with my foot.

"It doesn't change the fact you just tried to _kill_ me! How about you tell me what the fuck is going on, or I'll return the favour just like I did to everyone else?" I threatened under my breath.

A few feet to the left of me I noticed Blue standing alone, looking at both of us intermittently, growling in what I could tell was a great deal of indecision and stress. Owen turned to her with an expression of horror. _I don't think so_.

"Nice try, but she's not gonna attack me. We're both part of her pack." I snapped at him as he closed his eyes in desperation.

"Okay, _okay_! I was under orders, alright? They ordered me to..."

Suddenly, something clicked behind them.

"...I ordered him to take you dead or alive." interrupted a middle-aged man, clad in body armour and staring at them with a shotgun in hand. I looked back and noticed he was accompanied by what appeared to be several soldiers, all heavily armed. I quickly noticed the word 'InGen' on their uniforms. Should have known I'd see them again. Levelling their rifles directly at me, I knew that for the first time since everything happened, this was a fight I could not win.

"Step away from Mr. Grady, subject Alpha. Or we will pump your body so full of lead you'll be tasting it well into the afterlife." he shouted, laser pointers painting my torso from top to bottom.

I looked at Owen again, piecing everything together in my head. I couldn't believe what I was beginning to speculate.

"InGen? _You_...?" I growled.

"This is your last warning, Alpha. Don't think we're afraid to gun you down like a dog..." the man snapped back.

I knew at this point that InGen wouldn't dream of destroying their 'asset', but I needed some answers. Sometimes you have to step back to go forwards. I slowly stepped off Owen's chest and lifted my hands into the air as best I could. As one of the soldiers jammed a barrel into my back and I was pushed into a truck, I glanced at Blue in the corner of my eye.


End file.
